11 - 14 March 2009, Los Angeles, California, USA

This conference hosted by The Williams Institute at the University of Los Angeles’ School of Law, the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association (ILGLaw) and the City of West Hollywood. The focus of the conference was the development of legal rights of LGBTI people around the world. A total of 70 speakers from 38 different countries spoke about the advances and setbacks experienced in gaining rights for the LGBTI community in their respective countries. In excess of 200 delegates attended.

Wednesday 25 February 2009

Gender DynamiX presented a panel discussion as part of the Pride celebrations in Cape Town. The topic of discussion was about how do we as LGBTI people discriminate and have prejudice against the more marginalised members of the LGBTI community who are disabled, transgendered, bisexual or elderly.  A diverse cross section of the LGBTI community was represented by gay men, lesbian women, members from the disabled community, bisexual and heterosexual people from a variety of cultures.

The event started with the screening of a short movie, produced by Shelly Barry which addresses mainly ‘spaces of discomfort’ between a mother and her transgender child who is wheelchair bound. Pam Dlungwana spoke about the challenges of being bisexual in lesbian spaces.

A very constructive discussion was held around the reasons for the prejudices people have for marginalised people. It was realised that we need to first accept ourselves for who we are before others can accept us. It was also agreed that we need to engage with the rest of the LGBTI community, integrate our agenda’s into ‘mainstream’ LGBTI agendas and educate at each and every opportunity which presents itself.
 
“An event like this needs to be repeated... definitely” – Vincent Daniels, Chair person of the Western Cape Network for Disability.

Andre Carl, author of Moffie commented: “I’ve learned one helluva lot last night... and I was deeply, deeply touched”

Monday 23 February 2009

Triangle Project is hosting a group of exchange students from Sweden for three weeks.  The exchange program includes participants from Sweden, who are here to learn about LGBTI issues and culture in South Africa. The South African participants will on their return visit Sweden for three weeks and learn the same there. Due to this combination we managed to reach out to people from Sweden and people from our nearby townships who would otherwise not have been exposed to information about South African transgender matters. Gender DynamiX presented an awareness workshop at the Saartjie Baartman Centre. The focus of the presentations was about the access to medical and legal services for transgendered people in South Africa.
 
Tebogo gave a short introduction about Gender DynamiX and then shared some of his own story and experiences as a trans man. Caroline did a presentation on transgenderism, shared some of her experiences and expanded on some of the legal and medical challenges we face in South Africa. There was a lot of interest from the participants and they thanked us for sharing helping them to understand the challenges we face.